Bloody Blossoms
by faithmelodies
Summary: A girl once despised by her own village has been forced into a new world that is dark and mysterious, and is a reality she has never experienced before.


Chapter One:

Welcome to my story, Bloody Blossoms. I have finally revised this first chapter to fix grammar and sentence structure issues. Hope you enjoy it, and please feel free to check out my other stories.

x

Sakura stepped out onto the broad sidewalk outside of the weaponry store she had just shopped at. Heading down the street, a full moon glistened above her in the dark, clear sky as she briskly walked in anticipation to get teenager lived alone due to the death of her parents that occurred a year ago, and how they died had been a mystery to her and the rest of the Hidden Leaf Village. All of the friends she used to know drifted away from her as no one trusted her, and she had been left to live life as a loner.

She heard a faint rustling noise behind her, and tensed as she turned to figure out where the sound originated from. Her eyes saw nothing, but she decided to be on the safe side by not letting her guard down. After all, many strange people roamed the dark streets during the night, and many were undercover rapists and murderers. Once chance encounter with them could spell out the end of her life.

The sound vibrated through her ears again, and she turned her head swiftly and was able to catch a glimpse of a few pale figures behind her. Sakura shivered at the thought of being stalked, and decided she would rather escape the scene then destroy half the village in the process to exterminate the potential foes. She started running down the road, her petite body moving quickly as her hair flew into her eyes. She abruptly turned into a dark alley, and immediately regretted it.

'This one dead end could cost me my life!' She thought while her screaming thoughts scrambled to come up with a new plan. Sakura knew that her only option was to fight back and use the shinobi skills that were taught to her. She pulled out a kunai, putting her finger into the through the hole and spun it around like a rotating blade.

In the distance, she could see the familiar outlines standing before the only entrance into the alley. Sakura had a gut feeling that they were using strategy over sheer power, and it would only be a matter of time before they would outsmart her. She exhaled her breath and tried to remain calm as she took in the sight of the figures coming closer to her.

The first one looked to be the leader, as he stood in front of the rest of the group. Sakura narrowed her eyes to see that he was a rather tall man, with silky, upright hair, a dark mask covering his face, and a dark ninja headband over his left eye. Behind him stood two teenage boys that appeared to be of the same age. One had shaggy brown hair and the other spiky blonde hair. In the back were two more people, one being a middle-aged blonde woman clad in high heels and green robes, and another older male with long white hair tied back in a loose ponytail.

Sakura removed the kunai from her finger and pointed the cold piece of steel in the group's direction.

"Why are you following me?" She asked, her voice on the edge of hissing.

The leader only raised his eyebrows in response to her question and walked towards her. When he stood only a foot away from her, he lowered his gaze, putting them face to face. The young kunoichi prepared chakra in her knuckles, but was stopped by rough hands wrapping around her arms. Her lips turned into a frown as she glared up into his black eye.

"Get away from me."

The teenager's voice was once again filled with venom, but he ignored it. Outstretching both arms, be placed them on each side of her head against the brick wall. Her hand slapped him away, and she turned her attention away to see the older male with white hair laughing quietly as the group's muffled footsteps brought them closer to her. Once again, a shiver went down Sakura's spine as she looked at all the people around her and knew something was different about them.

The leader's arms went back to where they were before, but he was unable to see that her fist was overflowing with chakra.

"Get away from me, you fucking stalker!" She yelled as her knuckles impacted with the ground underneath him, giving way as she hoped it would crush him. Sakura jumped up, flying over him only to be greeted by the blonde female who seemed to have the same powers.

"She would be a good student for you, Tsunade," The older man said as he moved over to the said woman to help fight against the younger kunoichi. It was simply hand-to-hand combat, and the older female definitely had the better advantage. While Sakura dodged a flying fist from the male, the blonde landed her own into her target's stomach, causing Sakura to fall off her feet and cough up a small amount of blood.

Determined, Sakura wobbled back onto her feet, basically staggering. However, when she lifted her head, a confident smirk was plastered to her lips and anger was filled inside of her eyes. The older male smirked himself at her bravery.

"This girl has got some attitude, just like you." Tsunade glared at the older shinobi, but focused on the fight before her.

"Jiraiya, you have some nerve to be saying things about a girl we don't even know!"

Meanwhile, the blonde and brown-haired teenage boys ran over to help their leader, who was barely away from being crushed into the crumbled sidewalk. While the former was dislodging rocks that were in the way of the removal process, the other was seeing if he was still alive underneath the rubble.

"Kakashi-sama, are you alright?" The leader opened his one eye slightly, his vision blurred. He weakly nodded, before standing up and watching the mysterious girl as she fought with the group's two most experienced ninjas.

Kakashi walked over to the small group, with the two teenagers following closely behind him. They needed to get this fight over and done with, before any of them attracted attention to the situation. As he approached the fighting scene, he saw the pink-haired teenager throw a punch at Tsunade, successfully landing into her chest and knocking her back with the extra chakra boost coming from her fists. The leader situated himself next to Jiraiya, with the blonde boy on the older male's side and brown-haired boy behind them.

"Naruto, go help Tsunade with back-up," Kakashi commanded while lifting his forehead protector. He was going to need his sharingan if he wanted to end this quickly. Sakura watched him with her emerald eyes meeting his red and black ones, and smirked. Finally, she could see what was underneath that headband get the real battle started.

"You're okay after almost getting crushed?"

The copy-nin narrowed his eyes and frowned at her mocking sound, before watching her again so she could make the first move. She obliged, circling him to his side and watching him before abruptly shoving her first into the sidewalk again and uplifting everything in close distance to the impact. Kakashi jumped back, but the teenager who had been behind Jiraiya had been caught off guard.

As Sakura watched the result of her damage, she finally noticed a large, white dog next to the boy who had been trapped in the fragments of the ground. Her head turned to the other side of her to see Tsunade standing up and heading over with the other blonde, Naruto. She tried to think out a plan for her escape, but knew the odds were heavily against her and would be almost impossible.

Sighing angrily, Sakura's small fist once again smacked against the shattered against the pavement, and she could hear the blood-curdling scream of the boy who was now half crushed and the dog's yelp of agony and pain as his two back legs and tail got stuck beneath a large piece of debris.

"Kiba!"

he looked over to see Naruto yelling at his comrade and giving her a death glare. Never had Sakura ever seen someone so angry, upset, and pissed off in her whole life.

To show Naruto where he was, Kiba weakly raised his hand up into the air, signaling his friend to come and help him before he would bleed to death. While the spiky blonde boy helped his teammate, Jiraiya, Tsunade, and Kakashi moved over to Sakura, who was breathing heavily in pant-like gasps. Her eyes looked up toward the adults hovering over her, making her inwardly wanting to lie down and cower. But she fought the urge, and stared back at them for the longest moment before the leader spoke.

"You're coming with us, whether you like it or not."

Sakura shiver, her eyes meeting his as she watched the tomoes in his sharingan spin around the center at a fast rate. Her heart's rate sped up as her body felt like it was frozen and paralyzed, and she wondered if she was going into shock. Looking down, Sakura saw the long gash down her leg that was filled with blood and dirt. She gasped quietly, staggering to her legs once again and backed up against the wall, sending them a warning glance in her eyes before sending some of her green chakra into the wound in an attempt to edge off the pain. Tsunade smirked at the girl's effort to try to heal the long cut.

"She doesn't have enough chakra or time to do anything with it," she said professionally while sending a larger amount of chakra into her first in order to try knocking her out or add more damage.

Sakura looked up briefly to see the blonde woman heading toward her with a sinister look on her face, and the younger kunoichi immediately started panicking. Scrambling to regain her balance she had lost while leaning against the building's wall, she composed herself and glared at the medical-nin for interrupting her healing session. Although she was still an amateur at it, she had helped it to some degree.

She took one step, and the clash of hand-to-hand combat was on. As Tsunade lurched forward to land a hit on a vital part of Sakura's body, the former missed since the younger medic did a backflip, and landed gracefully on her feet, despite the strain her body was dealing with. While they were fighting, Naruto walked over with a heavily-injured Kiba and Akamaru thrown over each side of his back. While the dog was quietly growling from his injuries, Kiba was practically moaning so loud that all the residence in the area could hear him. Jiraiya took his younger teammate from his blonde student, and settled him against the concrete wall behind him, and placed the large, white dog beside his master.

"Is this all you got?" Tsunade looked at the girl with a smug look on her face, knowing she wasn't as strong as she portrayed to be. Well, at least compared to her. But then again, the Sannin had forty more years of experience than she did. As Sakura leaned away from being hit, the woman turned and her own knuckled collided into the teenager's side, making her fall over in agonizing pain. Exhaustion was settling over Sakura, and her vision started to become blurry around the edges.

"She is about to be out of chakra," Jiraiya noted while leaning back against the wall. "But, she is a pretty strong fighter for someone her age."

The leader was still standing out of the way, since the battle she was having against their best medic was making him edgy. He just nodded in acknowledgement, before walking over to them and giving the female Sannin a silent signal for him to take over. She looked at him for a moment, then backed up and walked over to the group waiting against the wall.

"Are you going to come with us, or fight the whole way there?" Sakura only looked up at him with fear, and her body started shaking more and more.

'Am I going into shock from using too much chakra?'She thought while holding herself together, and paused to check. 'No, but I'm right on the borderline.' However, she knew that her fate had been sealed and she would be carted off to some unknown place with these strange people. The thought almost made her sick as she inhaled a shaky breath.

After a moment, Kakashi knelt down, scooping up her limp body into his arms with her legs hanging over the sides of his grasp. Sakura glared at him, but decided to stop struggling, for her breathing was beginning to shallow. She also knew they weren't planning on killing her, as they could've already several times over.

"Tsunade-san, what did you do?" Kakashi asked. The woman shrugged.

"I cut off some of her chakra points and flipped her nervous system." A look of disgust ran through the leader's face, but he quickly removed it. He knew it was the only way they would be able to bring the young woman with them without a huge struggle.

"Okay everyone, mission completed. Let's head back to the village," Kakashi announced.

Everyone jumped up onto the rooftops of the buildings, following Kakashi as he took the lead. The cold night air chilled Sakura as she shivered. The copy-nin wrapped his arms tighter around her, fearing she would get hypothermia from being outside for too long. It was only spring after all, and it didn't help that she was fatigued.

After traveling for several miles, the young teenager's eyes could make out mountains in the distance. Her eyes had long forgotten the site of the Hidden Leaf Village, but it was still burned into her memory as she tried to fight back the tears that were threatening to come over to the surface. Sakura knew that it would be the only place she could consider home. Her parents were still buried there, and that was the place where she wanted her spirit to roam after she died. It had been her dream to die as a hero for Konoha, and now, that dream shattered as Sakura watched the ground fly by.

Deciding to change her mind frame, she thought about her life in different perspective. A smirk elongated along her fair skin for a moment. 'I guess this may be the start of a better life', she thought while shifting her weight in Kakashi's arms. His one eye glanced down at her again, and Sakura noticed that his headband was once again covering his sharingan. 'It must drain his chakra quickly', she thought while looking ahead to see the mountains getting closer to them. Sakura only hoped that her future would be brighter than it had been during the last year.

x

"We're almost there!"

Kakashi turned his head over his back and yelled to the team behind them, and everyone stopped jumping off varying tree limbs and looked down below to see if the area below was clear. Naruto's eyes scanned around quickly, before making a quick signal to say that the coast was clear. Jiraiya was beside his young student, quietly talking.

Kakashi's body skidded to stop in front of a large boulder blocking an underground entrance. Setting the Sakura's body down, he walked over to it and put his hand on the surface of the stone, and her emerald eyes widened as she saw it shift over the side, exposing a long, downward route to some unknown place. Tsunade and Kiba, along with the injured dog, were the first to go down, since they needed immediate care. The copy-nin picked Sakura up again, much to her annoyance, and let the others go before he followed suit and used his chakra to put the rock back in place.

The long passageway was damp and freezing to Sakura's skin, and the hair at the back of her neck stood up as a short breeze flowed past her. Not caring about her tough attitude anymore, she went closer to the leader's chest, despite the fears she had about him from earlier. His eye just glanced down at her again, but said nothing and just simply picked up the pace to head toward the clinic quicker.

The darkness soon vanished, and Sakura peeked up from underneath her eyelashes to see that they were now back outside, above the tunnel they had just passed through. Her head turned around, noticing that she was now in the flat area completed surround by mountains, and the glittering surface of a lake in the distance. The sky here seemed larger than it had looked back in Konoha, and she just looked up with amazement. After a moment, her focus once again turned toward the people around her.

People of the hidden village started to gather around Sakura, all of them watching from a short distance. Many of them saw the injuries she had, and had looks of pity on their faces for her. As she shifted her gaze from person to person, each one seemed to have something different about them that she couldn't describe. The first few people she saw were those she had faced in the battle earlier. She realized that Kiba and Akamaru were gone with Tsunade to the clinic, and she started to panic. 'Did I kill them?' She thought. Kakashi's gaze focused on her, wondering why she had stopped breathing and was now frozen in what seemed to be a trance.

"Did I kill Kiba?" Her voice was quiet and quivering.

"Don't worry, he'll pull through."

Murmurs began to go throughout the crowd, and evil glares were now directed at the young girl.

"Who is she?"

An arrogant voice spoke up from the people, and he walked away from them to look this newcomer right in the eyes. Kakashi sighed, not really wanting to get into it, and decided to make his answer short.

"She is going to be a new member," he put shortly while slowly lowering her to the ground in a vague attempt to see if she could at least balance some her weight on her two feet.

Sakura's body wobbled on her injured legs, and fell back onto Kakashi's body. A light blush sketched across her face, and she hoped that no one saw it. While her weight was being heavily balanced by the leader, Sakura could see the present anger erupting from this new person with raven hair. The black strands blew across his onyx eyes, and she could feel chakra building with his emotions.

"She's not even one of us!"

His hand clenched into a fist, until his knuckles turned white. Afraid, Sakura backed up more against Kakashi, who could feel her distress in the tension of her small frame.

"Sasuke, I suggest you calm down."

The look on Kakashi's face was enough to drive the raven-haired shinobi back a few steps, and she sighed. 'He is going to prove to be a challenge', she thought while folding her arms around her chest.

The voices around her grew louder, until Tsunade walked over with a heavily-bandaged Kiba and Akamaru, who were limping with each step they took.

'So that's the damage she is capable of', thought another young male with dark eyes and red hair. His arms were crossed over his chest, like Sakura had done, and his eyes watched her intently.

The two young blonde females in the crowd looked at the girl with surprise. They would have never expected someone small like her to deliver such a blow to an Inzuka.

"She's pretty strong for a regular human," the first one muttered. The other only nodded in agreement, while watching cautiously.

Other people began to relax when they saw that their team members were alright.

"Are these people going to accept me?" Sakura asked with uncertainty. Her head looked up at him, and saw that the leader was just staring off into space. The copy-nin smiled lightly.

"Don't worry about it," he said while his hands moved up to her shoulders as he stepped back, trying to keep her in balance without supporting any of her weight on him.

"Would you like to see your new home?" She nodded her head lightly, before following closely behind him as he began walking past the crowds who just watched in wide eyes, including Sasuke.

Sakura noticed that the path was rather long, and after a while the small stones in it began to wear out her feet, making her have to stop for a moment. The leader turned around and saw her with hands on top of her knees as she regulated her breathing. She was still tired after the battle, making Kakashi remember that she still had some of her chakra channels and nervous system damaged.

Sighing, he walked up from behind, letting her balance her weight against him as they began moving once again, unaware that a certain someone was watching them from a safe distance away, with the figure's eyes tracking their every movement.

Sakura's eyes narrowed into slits, seeing a cream-colored house that glowed from the moonlight above it, contrasting it from the night sky. They soon reached the porch, and Kakashi lifted her up the small steps to save her the strain.

Setting her back down, he went ahead and opened the door with the key, before turning around and handing it to Sakura. She wrapped her small hands around the silver piece of metal, closing her fingers and feeling the cool surface of it go into her skin.

She followed him inside, watching him as he flipped on a few light switches, and Sakura saw that they was in the living room. It was fair in size, and she could tell that it was still in the process of being furnished. The curtains were drawn back, letting in the little light the dark sky had to offer. There was also a large sofa, but the rest of the room had boxes spread out in different places.

The copy-nin helped Sakura over to the couch, placing her down before standing up straighter.

"I'm going to get Tsunade to come and heal you. Just wait here." Her eyes watched him as he turned away, and shifted her body so she was lying on a few pillows that had been placed near the armrests and tried to relax as pain shot through her.

An unusual, creaking noise brought her attention back quickly, and she looked to once again see another black figure that she seemed to remember.

"What do you want?" Her heart started racing, adrenaline flowing through her.

A wide smirk of arrogance went across his pale face, and she immediately knew who it was. Sasuke. Her fingers curled around the edges of the pillow she had been leaning against, fear and anxiety mixed off of Sakura that he could plainly see in her expression. Sakura's body was sent over the edge in emotion, and a heavy episode of shivers ripped through her as she tried to stand up onto her mangled feet.

But before doing so, Sasuke was already in front of her, with his katana unleashed. His eyes were filled with hate and his eyebrows were creased together.

"You don't deserve to be living in this area and become one of us. You're too weak."

Oh, Sakura was now livid. Her fingers clenched together, creating a fist, and rammed it right into his jaw line, and she could hear a satisfying break from underneath her . Sasuke blinked for a moment, before throwing her body into one of the white walls, with the katana's sharp edge right against the skin of her throat.

"I'd love to turn these walls red," he said darkly while pushing the blade closer. His head bent down, and Sakura swear she could feel the sharp tips of fangs along her neck, but the feeling had disappeared as quickly as she felt it.

Sakura's hand wrapped around his on the handle at the end of the sword, and pushed it closer to herself.

"Come on and kill me then. What are you wasting time for?" Her eyes closed, with her eyelashes outlining the rims, before reopening them with a narrow stare. "After all, I believe you know that the leader and Tsunade-sama will be back very soon. Why not get it over with now before you get caught?"

This time, Sasuke's eyes closed as an evil chuckle was building up in his throat.

"So the rumors are true then," he stated while bringing his vision back to him and staring down into Sakura's gaze.

"And what rumors would those be?" She spat while loosening her grip on the blade slightly.

"That you happen to be fearless," he answered with a blank expression.

A loud bang pierced through the heavy air that had cloaked around them, and Sasuke's head snapped toward the sound. Kakashi stood next to Tsunade, and both of them had a look of horror in their eyes as they saw what one of their own team members was doing to an injured girl. Tsunade almost dropped her healing supplies, but Kakashi moved up to them quickly, putting a hand on the blade before tossing it away and placing himself between Sasuke and Sakura.

"Sasuke, you should get out of here before I kill you," Kakashi hissed while the raven-haired male backed up.

Tsunade walked up behind him, grabbing his arms and throwing him outside the door, causing Sasuke to make a dent in the front yard from the boost of extra chakra she had used.

"I hope you don't mind that there is a hole on your lawn," the blonde muttered as she bent down and began healing Sakura's wound.

The copy-nin looked at the skin on her neck and saw a faint bruise starting to appear, and sighed.

"You're also going to have a bruise tomorrow," he murmured as he placed a finger on the darkening spot and felt her wince.

"Tsunade, you may want to heal this too, otherwise it'll look real nasty tomorrow morning." She nodded, before going back to focusing on the wound and wrapping it up in bandages.

After the healing was done, Sakura sighed and fell back onto the pillows beside her. She had dealt with a rough night, from being stalked and fought, to being welcomed by the leader and almost killed by an angry shinobi with something different about him. Sakura froze, stopping her breathing and focused on one thing.

'I had felt fangs on my neck earlier,' she thought. 'What the hell was up with that?'

"Is there something wrong?" Tsunade asked. However, Kakashi spoke up before Sakura could.

"Right now, we need to get Sasuke before he tries to kill her again. We can focus on what happened later. I'm going to get some help for this girl, and I want you to stay here and make sure no one else gets a chance to kill her. Try to get some information from her about whom she is."

The blonde nodded, before straightening up from the wall she had been leaning against and sat next to Sakura.

Kakashi left the house, and moved down the long path quickly, hoping a few people would still be around after the gathering. He focused his vision more, seeing the two young blondes Sakura had noticed before, and walked up to them. The boy with dark eyes was also there, along with Naruto. The girl with four blonde ponytails was the first to notice him, and gave him a questioning look.

"What's wrong, Leader-sama?"

The copy-nin stopped in front of them, his worry clearly on his features.

"I'll explain it later, but I need you guys to help protect the new girl." They nodded, before following Kakashi back down the road and ran all the way there.

Meanwhile, Tsunade's teeth ground together as she watched Sakura who had just fallen to sleep.

"How could he do this to someone like her?" She muttered quietly, while patiently waiting for her chakra to be restored so she could help the leader with a few of the cuts he had from the battle. She looked down for a moment, seeing the pink-haired teenager starting to move around from her short nap, and looked around with a frantic look.

The female Sannin put her hand on the girl's shoulder, looking at her with a gentle smile.

"Don't worry; I'm here to protect you."

Sakura's shoulders relaxed and dropped from their tense state and she repositioned herself so she was sitting next to the older woman. She was starting to trust this stranger, along with the leader, and thinking highly of her. And the strange thing was that she had only known them for less than a few hours.

Right when the door busted open, Sakura flinched and began cowering next to the medic, trying to back herself up all the way into the cushions with closed eyes. Tsunade nudged her with a finger against her shoulder, making the scared girl peek through one of her opened eyes. She first noticed Kakashi in the lead, and immediately relaxed and got out of the mess she had managed to make in the cushions.

"What happened to her?" Sakura recognized Naruto's voice, and his eyes were watching her with caution, yet she could see worry in them as well. Kakashi moved over to her casually, before sitting on the floor in front of her and gestured toward the other group of ninjas to do the same. After a moment, the leader sighed.

"Do you mind if we talk about it?"

Sakura reluctantly agreed to it, since she thought it might help her in the future.

"The girl was attacked by Sasuke while I went to go get Tsunade to heal her wounds."

The red-haired boy stared at nothing in particular before speaking.

"I'm not surprised that he's against having a new person joining us, especially since he hates those he considers beneath him." The copy-nin nodded his head with what the younger ninja had said.

"That's very true Gaara, but don't forget that he thinks of everyone like that, although he's never had the guts to attack someone like this before."

The leader was about to speak again, but was interrupted by Sakura.

"I just regained some of my memory, and I remember than I felt fangs glide over my neck."

Right at that instant, everyone froze at what she said, and looked at each other. Sighing, the leader ran his hand through his hair.

"May I know your name, miss?"

She looked at him before saying, "My name is Sakura Haruno."

Everyone still looked at the leader with tension, but said nothing, since they were waiting for him to speak.

"Well Sakura-san, I guess we have some things to tell you about us." Her emerald eyes widened in fear, and she lost count on how many times she had felt that emotion in only one night.


End file.
